1. Enquiries to Join
1.1. These may be by phone, or personal contact - at a New Members Meeting - or by email via Contact Us, or the Application Form, depending on whether the system is configured to include you. Depending how the form is configured it may just have come to you, or may have been copied to other members of the Core Group, so if this is the case, make sure you all know whose responsibility it is to handle the enrolment and that you keep the others in the loop (by replying all) when responding to the enquiry or application.
1.2. If the enquiry has come via the Contact Us form, sometimes it's a member wanting to find their password, or someone genuinely wanting to let you know about events in the area. If it's an enquiry to join, you will need to get them to fill in the Application Form to get the details you will need to fill in the form.

2. Responding to the Application
2.1. We have not been able to prevent all the potential spammers, so if you are sure it's spam, just delete it. If in doubt, that the application is genuine, you may want to verify that the person really wants to participate in the LETS rather than use it to promote their own mainstream business.
2.2. You can reply by email, but if you are comfortable doing this, it's a good idea to respond by phone (or if appropriate wait until another member of the Committee has confirmed to you that they have done so), in order to verify the application.

3. Renewing a Membership Account
3.1. If you don't know the membership list "by heart" you may need to check whether this person already has an account. The quickest way to do this is to go into Edit Member Account to see if the name appears in the list - NB if inactivated it may be preceded by a ~ which brings it to the bottom of the list, so look there too. If the names are not tagged in this way, you also need to check the active membership list, and if the name doesn't show there, it means they already have an account but were inactivated. Checking the Admin Note may inform you of past history.
3.2. If it looks genuine you can update their record with any new information and if you are going to re-active their account, remove the ~. If in doubt as to the identity of the person, you may need to call them to double-check, for example that an old address was that of the same person. NB whenever you update a member's record, please put a note in the Admin Note within their account to record what you have done, and why, and add your name and the date.
3.3. If the name appeared in the members list, and you are going to accept their re-application, go back to the menu, then to Unlock Account and Release Password, find them again and click to activate them - they will receive a new password with instructions. If the name doesn't appear on the members' list, it means they were inactivated, so, carry out the re-activate procedure before doing Unlock and Reset.

4. Enrolling a New Member
4.1. If a new account is needed, look at the membership list to find the last Account Number, then go via the Administration menu to "Create Member Account" using the next Account Number - don't forget to precede it by one or more zeros to match the format of previous IDs. If the member is present, they can choose a password. If the person has been welcomed already by phone, meeting, or your own email response, you can put their email address in - and when you press SUBMIT at the foot of the Profile, the system will release a password message. If by any chance the account number already exists the system will tell you, and you can go to the next number and submit again.
4.2. If you want to add additional information from their Application Form into their About Me box (which in the present software doesn't show in the Create Member profile), you can immediately go into Edit Member Account and add the information, hoping you will get to it before they do. However, if you want to do this in two stages, DO NOT insert email address when you create the account, but move it there after you have completed the editing - then later you can go to Unlock & Reset in order to release their password.
4.3. You can use the opportunity, between creating the account and releasing the password to respond to the applicant by email, telling them they are just about to receive the Welcome to message, and at the top of the message you can add the brief postcode, neighbourhood and their ID, so that this message is specific to them, and this should give them confidence to open the automated message and login to access their account. If other members of the Core Group have received the application form you should Reply All which will also alert the others to the fact that you have created the members' account. Here is a a simple draft letter, which you can adapt: the name of the LETS will appear as part of the title: "Thank you for your application to join our Local Exchange Trading Scheme. It was good to talk to you. We have set up an account for you in the system, and after this one you should receive a welcome message which gives you a password for your account. Best wishes from - Your name and contact details, https://www.xxxx.letslink.org

5. Text of the standard Welcome Message (specific details may be added for the individual group)
Welcome to "Name of LETS Group"
Hello, and welcome to the "Name of LETS Group" community! Please make a note of your four-digit user ID, which is listed at the end of this message with an automatically generated password. Enter your ID and copy and paste the password to log in HERE: http://website/member_login.php.
Once you have logged in, you can change the password if you wish by going to the My Profile section. Here you can also update your profile, upload a photo, and create and update your Offered and Wanted Listings. If you need help with any of this, please reply to this message, or Contact Us. Thank you for joining us.
- the password is added automatically here"

6. Following Up
6.1 It's a good idea to follow up quite soon to see if the member has logged in and created any Offers & Wants - they often need help and encouragement alternatively this may be the responsiblity of another member of the Core Group. Assistance can also be offered at member socials. You can also check the Members Who Have Not logged In list to see if they have actually accessed their account.
6.2. If you want to write to the member, click on on Members List, or on some websites Find Members, find the new member at the foot of the list, or use the search at the top, click on their account number, and their profile opens up. When you click on their email address, a message box opens up. If the message goes out FROM the admin email, address, and a copy of it goes to other the recipients of the admin email - this means that other admins will know that you have contacted the member, so choose "send me a copy", and click Send.